Madness Mondays are about those ancestors that are a mystery or you just can not find!! I have been searching for Amanda Robertson in 1900 for the longest. Could she have been in the household with Ben and Mandy and just not have been counted? Or was she outside of the house living with another relative and not have been counted? I have searched that whole 1900 census record for Policy Jury Ward 2 Webster Parish to no avail. She had to be somewhere. Amanda did not have her first child until 1902 James Amos. Could she have been off with the kids father James Manuel Amos? He was from Minden, LA. Legend goes, he was already married and had 2 children and married to a women named Ruth. His children by Ruth were: James and Rila. He had 4 children by Amanda, they were: James, Willie, Joseph, and my lovely grandmother Odessa. That means my grandmother had half sisters and brother that she might not hav known about.

Amanda and James was rumored to be married I assume sometime around 1900, but can not find a marriage record for them. Was able to locate a marriage record for James and Ruth. They were married in 1895 and had been married for 5 years according to the census record in 1900. You see James was still in the household with Ruth. Where was Amanda.

Put to my moms attention that maybe James and Amanda were never married. She said “Why would she have children by someone that she was not married to? Good question mom, why would she? Maybe because she thought she was in love or maybe he promised he was going to leave. Ladies we know the story and the sad part is that the story has not changed. So sad.

It did not turn out well, Amanda showed up in 1910 living with her sister Martha Bell(Martha married a Robert B Bell in 1900) all four children were born by then, and she was in her own place in 1920 with her children but she was widowed. By this time Amanda was starting to get really sick. Her son Willie had died from a heart attack at age 19, so there were James, Joseph, and my grandmother Odessa left. James decided to take Amanda out of LA area to find her help. No doctor could tell her what was wrong. The family traveled from Philadelphia and Chicago trying to get her help.

She passed away October 19, 1926. Still to this day no one knows what she passed away from. Rumor is that someone put a root on her because she messed around with married men. Hm!!